NGI Enrichers aims to be the European gateway for Internet innovators to both the US and Canada. An agile and flexible fellowship programme will provide financial support to Internet innovators from European and Horizon Europe associated countries to travel to the US or to Canada and collaborate with their counterparts on NGI (Next generation Internet)-related topics, such as on trust and data sovereignty, internet architecture renovation and decentralised technologies and solutions. Three open calls will be organised and 70 to 90 EU Internet researchers and innovators will be selected for 3 to 6 months fellowships (travel and monthly allowance), and be hosted by world class US and Canadian universities, research centers, or cutting-edge Internet private sector organisations to jointly develop innovative solutions and services in line with EU values and policy priorities. A community platform will support knowledge sharing and help establish long-term collaborations on NGI technologies, services, and standards. Fellows will participate in hybrid bootcamps, receive on-demand business, technical and collaboration support services and mentorship in order to increase the impact of their collaborations, and participate in a pitch and award ceremony. A pilot action with Canada will also be set up to provide additional or reciprocal fellowships to expand or reinforce initiated NGI collaborations. NGI Enrichers therefore offers a unique and 360° approach offering optimal preparations, ideal onsite conditions and long-term effects with sustainable collaboration partnerships, and will specifically allow to (1) enhance EU-US and EU-Canada cooperation in the development of NGI technologies, services and standards, (2) reinforce and expand NGI transatlantic ecosystem of top researchers, high-tech startups / SMEs and Internet-related communities collaborating on the evolution of the Internet according to a human-centric approach (3) help sharing the EU vision and values with US and Canadian counterparts and thus (4) contribute to the EU internet policy objectives.

The Region of Aragon together with local and European partners aims to support the uptake of the Aragonese Circular Economy (CE), through a new project development assistance service, that aims at accelerating the private funding of CE projects in the region: The RESOURCE project (REgional project development aSsistance fOr the Uptake of an aRagonese Circular Economy). RESOURCE gathers partners all along the value chain. G.A.C Group, (impact maximisation) is the project coordinator. CEEIARAGON the regional a reference centre of Aragon for the development and consolidation of technology-based business projects, will support GAC in co-coordinating the Project. Project partners involve the Government of Aragon (policy alignment), ANCES (links to private funders), AITIIP (technical support to projects), European Business Network, to liaise with a large array of European region and the CCRI, and University of Leiden, for expertise on circularity assessment. The overall implication is that implementing a change from a linear to a circular business model involves significant risks, which necessitates de-risking, in combination with a learning environment. Providing some financial support is essential. Investors and lenders need to learn about and assess better if financing such business investments in circular transitions will pay off, so that they ultimately can take over the role of providing risk capital. RESOURCE aims therefore at co-creating a Project Development Assistance (PDA) solution which reinforces Circular Economy projects, supports innovative business models and investment schemes, to help them raise funds from the private market in Aragon. In this project 9 pilot projects will seek funds for an investment of 20M€. The approach developed in the project aims at feeding from European best practices and replicated in other regions. RESOURCE is focussing on the Aragon region and will last 36 months.

Technological breakthroughs empowered by enabling technologies hold a transformation potential that can be funneled to address industrial and societal grand challenges, like greening and digitalisation. To exploit this transformative potential, the innovation journey that leads new emerging technologies to their market-uptake shall embed since its early value-sensitive considerations, such as environmental and societal implications. With FORGING we propose a new methodology based on a value-sensitive innovation journey that breaks linear innovation trajectories to stimulate new technological visions and pathways attentive to the environment and society, and human-centred in alignment with Industry 5.0. technological frameworks. The value-sensitive innovation journey will be deployed in three phases: the technological uncovering with tech experts from academia and industry to detect early signals of emerging technologies; the societal confluence exploring the desirability and societal impact, and implications of novel technologies; the full-fledged co-creation opening to the broader community to develop concrete use cases for tech uptake. We will develop 6 Technological Pathways to transfer ideas and help industry navigate through issues related to the absorption and deployment of the use cases. FORGING methodology will be implemented by catalysing stakeholders’ community with 600 active members, from academia to industry, to CSS, to policy makers and to the broader society. We aim to organise 24 co-creation sessions, consultations with 20 policy bodies, 6 scenario workshops and Tech. and Innovation campaigns to drive tech. adoption. The FORGING Playbook and Toolbox will gather a set of facilitation guidance and materials for exploration, reflection, co-creation and evaluation of emerging technologies. These assets, jointly with the FORGING community, will sustain FORGING as a new flagship initiative on emerging enabling technologies.

Assumptions: - There are many incubation and acceleration programmes in ‘modest’ and ‘moderate’ innovation ecosystems, however there is much fewer investors operating there as well the volume of capital available and actors of innovation ecosystems are not well connected - The potential investors (capital and industry) need relationships of trust with locally-based co-investors of smaller scale that would help them with the local deal flow as well as regulation guidance - The start-up ecosystems all over the world are oriented toward speed exits, which does not favour deep-tech start-ups, that need more time for development - Even the vibrant start-up hubs in Europe have problems in creation of deep-tech deal flow Objectives of atTRACTION: 1. To connect the ecosystems in Wielkopolska, Lithuania and Andalusia to strong innovation networks of Germany and France and: - stimulate cross-fertilisation effects through best practice sharing and learning by cooperation - syndicate a curated pipeline and portfolio of companies at different funding stages to create joint, syndicated, thematically focused deal flows that attract international investors - boost existing support programmes of business acceleration providers 2. To create investment opportunities for society-relevant deep-tech solutions: twin transition and health-tech, IOT& AI for social challenges Project idea: - Attraction and connection of existing acceleration initiatives and investment networks from the participating areas - Development of durable international relationships through concrete actions, i.e. pilot acceleration programs oriented on society needs solutions stemming from R&D - Joint activities increasing the level of trust among investors and founders from less connected ecosystems - Create syndicated, international deal flows in selected category of technologies - Boost co-investments in less connected regions - Support start-ups diversity backgrounds founders (women, migrants founders)

Energy and transport are the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in the EU at 25% and 21% respectively of total emissions. Efficient management, conversion and distribution of thermal energy as well as converting excess or wasted heat into electricity presents a major opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve net zero by 2050 in the energy and transport sectors and beyond e.g. heating and cooling distribution in buildings and districts, improved efficiency in renewables and more efficient, longer range electric vehicles. THERMINATOR will develop a new energy conversion technology in the form of an efficient low profile energy conversion “skin” that can be integrated into the fabric of a building or the wall of a pipe to reduce energy loss through active insulation or to provide temperature conversion in heat networks. It could be applied as a backing to improve efficiency of solar cells or integrated into the structure of a vehicle to support passenger comfort or improved efficiency of structural batteries. This novel technology integrates thermoacoustic and electrocaloric stages and operates at high frequency to achieve high power density (100W/cm2). Model-based smart controls and energy management will provide high efficiency and digital control for optimum performance and reliability and integration into digital networks. A focus on sustainability, circularity and socio-economic factors will ensure products with high environmental and social benefit. Developments will be validated to TRL4 by testing in use cases in thermal networks, solar generation and electric vehicle applications. THERMINATOR disruptive technology will support European companies in developing new high performance sustainable products through consortium members in thermal networks and solar power sectors alongside world-leading expertise in electrocaloric, thermoacoustic and ultrasonic technologies and skills in reliability, environmental assessment and exploitation planning.